I spent a sunrise and a sunset at Mesquite, and boy did the place look used up. I almost missed the 40+ MPH winds from last time around. All are shot with my new 90 TS-E, and all are heavily tilted (5 or more degrees). I did enjoy spending some time with it. C&C welcome and appreciated.
#2 is pretty good. I love those patterns of clay or such that form like that. #3 is a nice abstract. But I have to say, #1 isn't working for me. A couple of things, the sky feels pushed, it isn't coming across with a natural feel The Mesquite brush has gone black, some shadow detail would be nice there. And that foreground... while the curled up mud is cool in it's own right, I think that whole area being in shadow just lends itself to a muddied appearance, rather then a crisp feel.
Thanks for the comment Jim. I was having trouble with the processing on #1. This was one of the first times where I ran into real issue with pulling back the highlights when none of them clipped. It never quite looked right, and the compression didn't do it any favors. I think the curves adjustment kicked up the blue too much in the mountain base, and I can certainly see the lack of crispness. Here's a B&W I've been working on, and hopefully it doesn't suffer from the same crispness issues.
The edit of #1 is certainly better, I have had shots like that where for whatever reason, just wouldn't come together. So I think B&W is the way to go, now I like the direction of it, but as I look at it a bit more, I am struck with the feeling that instead of this being a B&W, it's a "gray" shot... if you get what I mean, there are tons of shades of gray, but no distinct real Blacks and whites... You pulled detail out of the brush, that's fantastic, and I know if you push the blacks too much, you stand a chance to lose that detail... What if from that row of brush back to the front you brightened that drying up mud? Maybe get a bit of light on it?
Maybe others will like the B&W as it is, and I think you are close, just need to touch up that foreground in some way...